Rice and Grain Bowl

A little bit of prep work has a big payoff—a tasty, versatile lunch just waiting for its gochujang-lime dressing.

This recipe was directly inspired by the wonderland of flavors and textures that is Korean bibimbap, a bowl or pot of rice topped with an assortment of vegetables, an egg, and (sometimes) meat that's mixed up right before it's eaten.

We took inspiration from picadillo, a saucy spiced ground meat dish packed with flavor, and thought, Why not give tofu a similar treatment?

In this weeknight recipe, magical, salty, umami-packed fish sauce is doing double-duty as a seasoning in the meatball mixture and as a part of the finishing sauce.

Protein, whole grains, crunchy vegetables, and a kick-in-your-pants sauce—yep, this packable lunch has it all.

This filling, endlessly riffable bowl is perfect with roasted sweet potatoes, but any hardy vegetable you have on hand would be just as delicious.

Here’s a low-effort dinner bowl that comes together in less than 30 minutes.

Kedgeree often calls for smoked fish, but for a light weeknight meal, we prefer steaming fresh fish right on top of the rice.

Why make a marinade and a dressing when you can make one tangy, spicy-sweet sauce that works as both?

Call it cheating—we call it 30 minutes you don’t need to spend standing at the stove.

This recipe is a great way to showcase the eggplants and basil you just hauled from the market.

Giving pork tenderloin a bulgogi-influenced makeover makes it flavorful, fast-cooking, and weeknight-friendly.

Alison Carroll, who developed this recipe, relies almost entirely on dry pantry staples to build depth of flavor in this superfood broth. Feel free to swap out the vermicelli for your favorite cooked grain or a different noodle—the recipe is designed to be customizable.

These sweet potato bowls are an easy go-to weeknight dinner: Steam the sweet potatoes while you sauté the mushrooms with spiced ground lamb, quick-pickle fennel and onions, make a simple yogurt sauce, and dinner is ready in about half an hour.

Whether it’s part of a Japanese breakfast or a classic bagel spread, smoked fish is never a bad idea.

You can use any cooked grain—and any type of sausage you want—for this healthy but hearty dinner bowl.

Make a double batch of the tahini-honey sauce at the beginning of the week to use on salads, as a dip for crunchy vegetables, or drizzled over seared salmon.

The most substantial lunch bowl of your life.

A kicky chile-lime dressing wakes up your weeknight salmon.

The origins of this recipe are incredibly simple—leftover rice with hot water, broth, or tea poured over. We started there, then kept going. All of the finishing touches (ginger, furikake, and nori) make this feel less like a snack and more like a balanced dish.

Angela Dimayuga of Mission Chinese Food likes using whole dried ashwagandha root in this clay pot dinner.

To serve this dish as a main course for eight, double the recipe over two pots and throw some warm baguettes on the table.

It isn’t often we demolish an entire bowl of something without once suspecting that it was vegan.

Lightly browning the beans and aromatics for a few minutes before you add the tomatoes gives a lot of depth of flavor to the sauce.